by Ian Hocking
‘I am Pavel Eduardovitch,’ he replied. His English made him sound like a ventriloquist’s dummy. ‘I am plissed to make your acquaintance.’
Saskia took his hand. He did not look at her. ‘Look at me.’
He did. His eyes were restless.
‘Once more,’ Saskia said. ‘Pleased.’
‘Plissed.’
‘Again. Spread your lips more and keep your tongue high.’
He tried not to smile. ‘Pleased. I am pleased.’
‘I am Mirra Tucholsky. I am also pleased.’
‘Will you teach me English, Madam?’
Saskia said nothing. She looked Charlotte, who seemed amused by the exchange.
‘Darling,’ Charlotte said, returning to French, ‘it is time for your walk now. Three times around the garden. I will have Ivan watch you.’
Chapter Eleven
Many hours passed before Saskia could meet Count Nakhimov. The hundred guests arrived at nine o’clock, precisely at sunset, and remained until four, when the sun returned. Not yet the White Nights; they were a month away. As though the dawn had fairytale significance, the gloved hands of the nobility parted and slipped into the day, their carriages ringing with conversation. Only then did Count Nakhimov appear. Saskia was left with memories of black, polished boots and epaulettes and earnest young men who wished to dance with her. But she never danced. She was content to let the evening progress before her: on a dance floor as large, it seemed, as the concourse of Moscow Station, sided with mirrors that projected the scene endlessly, repeating the themes of gold and ivory. She sat even as the orchestra played one of the Hungarian Dances by Brahms.
There had been, as ever, political discussion among the wallflowers. Saskia was surprised to overhear snide remarks about His Majesty. These guests were permitted by birth to enjoy the gilded life of the Russian aristocracy, and yet they seemed contemptuous of its source. Saskia had once spent two late summer months gathering corn in the Ukraine with anarchist friends. The peasants there had idolised the Tsar. They were happy with the Tsar’s ration; they thought that the Tsar would save them—in every sense. It had underscored Saskia’s belief in the operatic absurdity of Imperial Russia’s prolonged death. Those peasants were content to listen to Saskia and her friend Angela as they read from their copies of The Manifesto of the Communist Party. The peasants listened even as they lay in their lice-infested bunks. But, come morning, they had forgotten the message, and the men in the worker blocks muttered that they would sooner have prostitutes than these pious, polite readers. The peasants had settled on their life’s meaning: an ex-soldier called Nicholas, their Little Father. When Angela called him Nicholas the Last, the peasants rebuked her.
Meanwhile, at the ball, dawn had come. Saskia stood alongside the Countess and thanked the retreating guests. She spent a particular, friendly moment with an ancient Colonel called Yuri who had fought at Sebastopol. She was polite enough to accept a dozen calling cards from suitors. Later, she would drop them into one of the porcelain stoves that perfumed the air.
The Countess had told her about the intricacies of Petersburg social life. Each Grand Ducal court had its clique. The most regarded was that of Grand Duchess Marie, wife of the Grand Duke Vladimir. Saskia watched her as she spoke. Was there irony in her tone? Was she presenting a caricature of her life?
At dawn, the servant passed a note to the Countess, who read it, nodded, and said, ‘Sister, the Count has arrived. You will find him in his office. Follow Fyodor.’
Saskia was led through to the pied-à-terre. Once in the small drawing room, she waited for the servant to withdraw. The Count was standing at the mantelpiece of a hearty fire. He wore a beige, puff-breasted suit. His moustaches were voluminous and his beard short—both a tribute to his Tsar. He covered his baldness with a terrible comb-over that Saskia found at once distracting and charming. As ever, the air was ripe with Mouchoir de Monsieur.
For the first moments of their reacquaintance, he seemed uncomfortable. He did not reach to shake her hand.
‘I’m pleased to see you, Ms Tucholsky.’
‘Count Nakhimov,’ she said. ‘At last.’
He asked her to sit down. Saskia perched on the edge of a winged chair. She crossed her legs and looked into the fire.
‘Must we speak this language, even here?’ said the Count. ‘I feel I have forgotten all the words.’
‘I would prefer it.’
‘Are your quarters comfortable?’
‘I have no idea,’ she said. ‘I arrived only this afternoon.’
‘I see. I apologise.’
‘What for? I had time to meet your son.’
‘That pleases me. Do you agree to tutor him?’
‘Count, you know that I must leave immediately for the Amber Room. I appreciate the cover story, but that’s what it must remain.’
‘Were you followed?’
‘From the station? No. But Soso’s men were waiting for me at your house in Zurich.’
‘And yet you successfully returned to the Empire with my help.’
‘I received the documents, obviously. Have you received word from Mr Jenner?’
‘The house is quite safe.’
‘I specifically ask after Mr Jenner.’
‘He is fine. Obviously.’
‘You’re angry with me.’
‘No.’ He touched his collar. ‘I am surprised that you survived the Georgian.’
Saskia closed her eyes. The connection, here, was clear. ‘You sent them, didn’t you, Count?’
‘The Georgian interrogated my go-between and discovered the location of my house in Zurich. That’s how he found you.’
‘That doesn’t explain how he located my garret in Aussersihl, does it?’
‘No,’ said the Count, worried. ‘It does not.’
‘What is your protection, Count? What keeps you safe? If they know your house in Zurich, they know your house here.’
‘My belief in the Party, of course. What keeps you safe?’
‘The edge of my wit. What had you given them?’
‘I told them I would bring you “in from the cold”, to use your phrase. That’s always been enough.’
‘Count, this is no longer about the money.’
‘Is it not? You’re talking about the greatest heist in the history of the world. Did you think they would have forgotten you?’
‘Once I enter the Amber Room, they will forget me.’
‘Is the money there?’
Saskia smiled. ‘Why do you ask me? You must be astoundingly incompetent if you have not already checked.’
The Count said nothing.
‘The Georgian nearly got me. You owe me. You’ve been playing double-agent with dangerous people, Count. The biter can always become the bitten. They almost killed me. They can kill you.’ She pictured sparrows falling from the sky. ‘I need the equipment I asked for and I need time in the Amber Room. Understood?’
‘If you get your wish, I must get mine.’
‘I will tell you the location of the money the instant my work in the Amber Room is done.’
‘Thank you. But, after that, what will keep you safe?’
‘Nothing.’
Chapter Twelve
The following night, Saskia lay in her bed. Her eyes were fixed on her ceiling. A hunting scene had been rendered in grey plaster. Hints of light moved through the antlers of the stag. Saskia listened. Two floors down, a watchman continued his round. She could hear the hinge on his lantern handle and the respiration-like sound of his slippers. Inhalations shorter than exhalations. A limp, then. She thought about Papashvily’s bad ear, the dog that killed him, and the strong jaw of the English alpinist. She thought about Pavel Eduardovitch. He had been too ill to attend the ball and had spent the rest of the following day in bed. Saskia had given him no thought until now, when a sorrowful note had carried down the corridor. Its youthful tenor was unmistakable.
A second note. Then a third. By the fourth, Saskia had dr
awn her blankets aside and lit her bedside lamp. Her bare feet passed without sound across the cold floorboards. She took a perfume bottle from her dresser. At the door to her room—locked by habit—she stopped to listen. The singing had stopped.
She unlocked the door and passed into the empty corridor. It was even colder than her room. She considered returning for a gown to cover her night-dress, but the notes were too important. She tucked the stump of her wrist into her armpit and stepped onto the rug that ran the length of the corridor. The flame of her lamp guttered, but held.
Ahead, behind double doors, were the rooms of the Count and Countess. Pavel Eduardovitch slept next door to them. She approached his door, extinguished her lantern, and pushed it ajar by the smallest measure. There was nothing to see in his room but an empty fireplace. She put the nozzle of the perfume bottle against the upper hinge and pumped vegetable oil out. She repeated the treatment on the lower hinge. Then she opened the door fully and entered, closing it behind her.
The night was moonless, but Saskia could see from the scintillas of light around the window. She put her cooling lamp on the untidy bureau and approached the bed. Pasha lay twisted in his bedclothes. His mouth gaped. Saskia was reminded of the image that had filled her mind upon waking those minutes before, of a moustachioed nightmare creature sitting on the chest of the boy, trolling a lullaby as Pavel Eduardovitch suffocated. Now, fully awake, she had not expected to find that creature; but neither had she expected to hear a song of revolution coming from his lips: there, another note, making it certain that this was the song she recognised.
She remained at the foot of the bed. She waited, eyes closed, for the rest of the song. When it came, the notes carried her back to the days after she had first fallen to Russia. Those days had been so bright and alive that the memories of her previous life—of 2003, of 2023—had been reduced to a dream, or a story that faded in the telling. She had forgotten herself.
It had been raining on the day she met him.
Soso.
The singing stopped.
‘Is somebody there?’
Saskia opened her eyes. The boy was sitting upright in his bed. His eyes roamed unseeing. He reached his bedside lamp and Saskia, remembering that she wore only the night shirt, said, ‘Wait, Pavel Eduardovitch. Don’t be afraid.’
‘What?’
‘The word you are looking for is “pardon”.’
‘Ms Tucholsky?’
He reached for the lamp again. ‘No,’ Saskia said. ‘Don’t.’
‘Why not? I can’t see you.’
Saskia could see everything. She felt his electricities. The heat on his forehead was unusually distributed. Was it a function of his epilepsy? No: sweat droplets, cooling.
‘Pavel Eduardovitch, you were singing in your sleep.’
‘I wasn’t.’
‘Tell me about your dream.’
‘No.’
Saskia sighed. She held her stump and thumbed the scar tissue. ‘You were singing in your sleep.’
‘I can’t sing,’ he said. His voice was louder. ‘Ask Mother.’
‘Be quiet. That song could get you into trouble.’
‘What song?’
Saskia rocked on her feet. She was cold and wanted to return to her bed. ‘Turn on your light.’
At first, Pasha did nothing. He frowned. There was an infantile petulance about him. The potential for manhood was clear in his lanky frame, but the adult qualities had not yet germinated. He was still a boy.
‘Do it,’ she said.
The electric light flickered. Pasha put a hand across his face, then slowly let it fall. Saskia was aware of his awkwardness. She waited while the boy looked at her. Then she raised her stump. The switch in his attention was palpable. His eyes fixated on the wrist.
Saskia walked around the bed. She crouched and held out the stump. ‘Touch it,’ she said.
‘Are you sure?’
As he felt the scar, Saskia watched his fascination.
‘I had the amputation reset by a butcher,’ she said. ‘He was no medic, but he knew how to tidy meat.’
‘You’re unusual.’
‘Pavel Eduardovitch,’ she said, ‘I will be honest with you. Then you will be honest with me. Do you agree?’
‘I don’t know. What do you wish to honest about?’
Smiling, she said, ‘I have a particular nightmare. Once, sometimes twice, each week, I open my dream eyes in a metal carriage. It is like a train, but it flies through the sky. I know this is the future. Decades from now. I’m sitting at the rear of this machine. Next to me is a little girl. She is dead, but I reach across and take her hand. I know that the flying machine is about to crash. It will crash in a forest. I’m sad because I love the forest, but this is a forest I will never see. When the flying machine does crash, I see its metals and plastics wash towards me like a great wave. Something fires down the aisle. It is a piece of an engine. There’s a bright pain in my wrist.’ She lifted her stump. ‘And I know that the girl has gone, and I have returned to the forest.’
‘It sounds horrible.’
‘It is.’
‘Do you think of it during the day?’
‘Sometimes. But, in daylight, it seems powerless. It does not scare me. At those times, I can hear the nightmare whisper in my ear: “tonight, then you will be scared”.’ Saskia put her elbow on the bed. ‘Do you know the English word for koshmar?’
‘Nightmare.’
‘Good. The word derives from mære, which was a supernatural beast thought to sit on one’s chest at night. Its pressure caused sickness and death.’
‘Is that why the English say, “Get it off your chest”?’
‘Perhaps. Tell me about your nightmare, Pavel Eduardovitch. Quid pro quo. What happens when you open your dream eyes?’
‘I don’t want to tell you.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because you’ll tell Mother. I don’t want her to … apply her theory.’
Saskia smiled. ‘I won’t tell her.’
He looked at the ceiling through the open square of his four-poster. ‘I’m in a leafy place. It might be Alexander Park in the Tsar’s Village. It’s summer, but a rain is falling. I walk through undergrowth but my footsteps make no sound. I might be a ghost. I …’
‘What?’
‘This sounds strange, but I feel like this is not my dream. Someone real is dreaming me.’
‘I see.’
‘I feel lost,’ he said. ‘There are no memories of what I was doing just before I came to the forest. I struggle to hear birdsong. There is none. Then, just as I am about to call for help, I hear a beautiful song.’
‘Hum it for me.’
Pasha turned away. ‘I know that I should ignore the sound, but I can’t. I walk towards it. As the singing grows louder, and more distinct, I can make out the words.’
‘Which words?’
‘I can’t remember. But in the nightmare, I recognise them.’ Pasha turned to her. His eyes were wide. ‘Finally, I reach a clearing. There is a beaten track leading to a circle of stones. The stones are uneven. An iron mesh covers the top. The singing is clear. It’s too clear. It feels like the notes are needles that reach deep inside my ears.’
‘Think. Is the voice male or female?’
‘It has the qualities of both. A woman’s pitch; a man’s anger. Just as I am looking down, I see a flash of sky reflected in the pool at the bottom. It seems far away. Then I realise that the iron mesh no longer covers the well. It has been pulled away. Two dots flash in the darkness. They might be eyes. The singing stops.’
‘What happens next?’
‘It varies. Sometimes I slip into the well. Other times, I get pushed.’
‘But you fall in?’
‘I start to fall. Then I wake up.’ He looked into her eyes, judging her reaction. ‘What do you think?’
‘I have no theory, if that’s what you mean.’
‘Why are you worried about the song?’
&nbs
p; ‘I heard it a long time ago, when I was walking the Caucasus.’
‘That’s not what I asked.’ Pavel Eduardovitch touched her forearm. She had not expected it. The hairs rose and she tried to pull away, but he held on to her. ‘You’re not a mathematics tutor, are you?’
‘Let go of my arm.’
But he did not. He frowned at something he could feel above her elbow. He pushed back the sleeve to reveal a dark band. Saskia saw it through his eyes: unaccountably black, unreflective, and restless. It seemed to creep. And yet it was still.
There was a moment when Saskia thought the world had stopped, crashed, as his finger came within an inch of the device.
Then he grasped it.
Her mouth opened a little.
‘One,’ he said, closing his eyes.
‘One what?’
‘One. Zero. Zero. Zero. One—’
Saskia looked from his slack, empty face to the band. She was certain that the band was pulling something out of him. It was an illusion, however. The reverse entropic field was affecting his speech.
‘Stop, Pavel Eduardovitch.’
‘One. Zero. Zero.’
She tried to remove his hand from the band, but his grip tightened. Was the band doing this, too?
‘Zero,’ he said, emphatically. There was bubbling throat in his throat. He swallowed. ‘One, zero, one, one.’
Now she squeezed his hand to reassure him, even as his fingers dug into her elbow, throttling the blood.
‘Zero,’ he said. ‘Zero, zero, zero.’
His hand slipped from hers. Saskia felt the blood return to her forearm. She leaned towards Pasha and demanded of herself that she know his condition. With that imperative thought came pieces of a reply: Pasha’s brainwaves featured a pronounced alpha wave component, which suggested he was calm and alert. His breathing was normal for his age and weight. Odours consistent with the decomposition of stress hormones spilled from his pores and his breath. His head lolled to one side, and the electrical activity of his head and neck muscles briefly made his brain waves difficult to interpret.
‘Pasha?’
He opened his eyes. ‘I heard myself saying numbers.’